Here’s How Stephen Colbert’s ‘Late Show’ TV Ratings Stack Up After One Year

Stephen Colbert premiered as the new host of “The Late Show” on September 8, 2015. Fast-forward one year (and one day, that’s how the calendar works) later, and he’s proved to be virtually no threat whatsoever to Jimmy Fallon.

From Colbert’s CBS debut, through Friday, September 9, 2016, the former Comedy Central personality has averaged a 0.62 rating in the advertiser-sought 18-49 demographic. He’s pulled in 2.822 million total viewers per episode over that same time frame.

Compare those figures to Fallon, who has hauled in a 1.00 demo rating and 3.652 million total viewers over that stretch. That’s a 61 percent advantage among those 18-49, and 29 percent better when counting all adults. CBS draws an older clientele, explaining away much of that disparity between eyeballs of a certain age and overall tune-in.

By the way, Fallon has beaten Colbert in the demo every single week since “The Late Show” changed hands — that includes the first five days of the post-David Letterman era. “The Tonight Show” has bested Colbert in total viewers each week after the former “Colbert Report” host’s debut one, which Stephen won.

And just in case you think the CBS version bests NBC’s in that hour among the older 25-54 demographic, it does not. The One-Two ranking holds in every single key ratings category.

It’s not all doom and gloom for Colbert, however. The new guy is still outdoing the mailed-in performances that Letterman offered towards the end of his run — but it’s dangerously close by some comparisons.

Of course, this isn’t a two-horse race. Jimmy Kimmel’s got a little something to say about 11:35 p.m. — but unfortunately, the optimum word there is “little.” “Jimmy Kimmel Live” has averaged a 0.53 in the main demo and 2.296 million total viewers in the 12 months since Colbert started at “The Late Show” — good enough (or bad enough, really) for third place.

To be fair to Kimmel, he’s been more evenly matched with Colbert in recent months — the latter’s debut numbers are skewing the year-long averages a bit.

But those Kimmel demo numbers are actually not that much better than Seth Meyers‘ “Late Night,” which airs an hour later. One could even say the same thing about “JKL” versus “The Daily Show” — and Trevor Noah’s not even lighting up cable.

Unfortunately, it’s not like things are getting any better for either Colbert or Kimmel.

Meanwhile, last week, both Fallon and Meyers scored their best numbers since January. In doing so, “Tonight” topped Colbert and Kimmel combined in the demo, while “Late Night” trumped both individually, despite its less-desirable time slot.

It should be noted that an NBC “Thursday Night Football” overrun helped out there a bit, and all shows took a break for Monday’s Labor Day holiday — though perhaps Fallon and Meyers are the only two who truly deserved a night off.

On an episode of "Late Night With Stephen Colbert," the host revealed that he had been prohibited from using his conservative, clueless TV show persona from "The Colbert Report" elsewhere. Instead, Colbert skirted around the issue by going into character under the guise of being Colbert's cousin. He also riffed off of his popular sketch "The Word" by recreating it with the name "The Werd."

NBC attempted to prohibit David Letterman from taking popular sketches like "Top 10 Lists" over to his CBS show because they were the "intellectual property" of NBC. Letterman still managed to keep the sketch on the "Late Show" by renaming it "The Late Show Top 10" by and adding a different intro soundtrack. He eventually went back to referring it as "Top 10" without any problems.

"Stupid Pet Tricks" was another one of the most popular sketches on "Late Night" that NBC tried to claim ownership of. As the name would imply, pets would come on stage and perform strange tricks for the audience.

Though NBC included the sketch in its list of "intellectual property" that Letterman could not take over to CBS, the host still continued to keep it alive on the "Late Show," albeit at a lower frequency. A spinoff, "Stupid Human Tricks," was also created.

Another popular staple on "Late Night with David Letterman," Larry "Bud" Melman was considered property of NBC and Letterman was barred from using him on the "Late Show."

What Letterman and his team did instead was rename Larry "Bud" Melman to Calvert DeForest -- the actor's real name -- and have him essentially play the exact same character.

A recurring character on "The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien", Triumph the Comic Insult Dog, almost didn't make it over to TBS due to the same "intellectual property" woes. The puppet, who was voiced by Robert Smigel, would frequently appear to insult guests with a cigar in its mouth. Triumph eventually managed to find his way onto "Conan" without too much drama.

Craig Kilborn, the host of the "Daily Show" from 1996-98, created a sketch called "Five Questions" that involved him asking celebrity guests a set of obscure and/or subjective questions. But when Kilborn left for CBS' "Late Late Show" in 1998, he claimed the sketch as his own intellectual property and brought it over to CBS. Comedy Central did not fight back against this and the sketch did not reappear in full again on "The Daily Show."

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David Letterman, Conan O’Brien, and now Stephen Colbert have all had their old networks try to stop them from bringing over popular sketches and characters back to life

On an episode of "Late Night With Stephen Colbert," the host revealed that he had been prohibited from using his conservative, clueless TV show persona from "The Colbert Report" elsewhere. Instead, Colbert skirted around the issue by going into character under the guise of being Colbert's cousin. He also riffed off of his popular sketch "The Word" by recreating it with the name "The Werd."